As the radio talkback shows continue to host angry callers criticising Christchurch City’s chief executive Tony Marryatt and Mayor Bob Parker, the council has announced a plan to have the CE ‘out and about’ more often in the community.

There’s a call to pay closer attention to insurance on residential property. Colin McCulloch, risk manager for JLT says people need to get the size of our property correct or you could end up under-insuring it.

Work is to begin on the first stage of works to redevelop the Shoal Bay Wharf on Great Barrier Island. Lying out in the Gulf, some 90km from Auckland, Great Barrier has a population of around 850 people normally. However at this time of the year visitors to the island start arriving in force.

Shingle beaches most often mean sand and gravel in your jandels, but there is increasing realisation that there’s something special about them that many people haven’t appreciated up till now.

Non-smokers have claimed the right to breathe fresh air inside restaurants and other public places, but now smokers are claiming the outdoors as their own. An upcoming forum aims to start changing attitudes among our councils.

ALGIM’s recent awards ceremony brought success for a local government technology managed credited with contributing to significant cost savings by councils around New Zealand.

Wellington City has launched a bold plan for the next ten years, but underlying the strategy of creating new jobs and attracting investment is an urgent need to cut debt and to keep rate rises to a minimum.

Salvors are rounding up containers jettisoned from the stricken container ship Rena and which are now floating in coastal waters of the Bay of Plenty. This follows the weekend storm and big waves which finally split the ship in two.